The CMS Interoperability and Prior Authorization Rules
Podcast — Drug Pricing: How Are Payers Responding to the IRA?
Findings from Gibbins’ Annual Healthcare Bankruptcy Report
A Fond Farewell: Musings on the End of the Medicare Advantage Hospice Carve-In Demonstration
Video: Braidwood v. Becerra – Challenging the Affordable Care Act’s Preventive Services Coverage Provision – Thought Leaders in Health Law
Hospice and Home Health Survey Perspectives: A Conversation with Kim Skehan, VP of Accreditation at CHAP
Transparency and the Open Payments Program
Taking the Pulse, A Health Care and Life Sciences Video Podcast | Episode 173: Improving rural health care with Dr. Kevin Bennett, the Director of the Research Center for Transforming Health and the
Counsel That Cares - The Private Payer's Perspective on Value-Based Care
Podcast: Health Equity – Behind the Buzzwords – Diagnosing Health Care
A Very “Special” Episode: Amid Controversy, CMS Launches the Hospice Special Focus Program
Grace from CMS: Unexpected Good News on HIS and CAHPS Appeals
This Bandwagon Has a Broken Wheel: OIG Joins the Inconsistent Approach to Hospice GIP Claims
Behind the Curtain: Enhanced Provider Enrollment Oversight
Survey Woes: CMS Ramps Up Hospice Survey Program and Consequences
Inflation Reduction Act’s Drug Price Negotiation Provisions – What Now? – Diagnosing Health Care Podcast
A Glimpse Into the Other Side: Understanding the Perspective of Government Enforcers
I Understood There Would Be No Math: Audits, Extrapolations, and a New Set of Rules
Podcast: Inflation Reduction Act’s Drug Price Negotiation Provisions – What’s Next? - Diagnosing Health Care
Quick Takeaways From the 2024 Proposed Hospice Wage Index Rule
After nearly three years of navigating the most widespread public health crisis since the 1918 influenza pandemic, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) has withdrawn its mandatory vaccination and testing...more
In April 2022, CMS announced an initiative to pay for Medicare beneficiaries to receive free OTC COVID-19 test kits. Specifically, Medicare established a demonstration project to pay various eligible healthcare providers to...more
The U.S. COVID-19 Public Health Emergency will end on May 11, 2023, one week after the World Health Organization determined that COVID-19 is no longer a Public Health Emergency of International Concern....more
On February 9, 2023, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) announced that the Public Health Emergency (“PHE”) arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, declared under Section 319 of the Public Health Service Act,...more
The White House recently announced that the COVID-19 national emergency and public health emergency (PHE) declarations will end on May 11, 2023. These declarations have been in place since the beginning of the COVID-19...more
On January 30, 2023, the Biden administration announced its intention to make final extensions of both the COVID-19 National Emergency (NE) and the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE) through May 11, 2023, at which point...more
On December 19, 2022, OIG released its annual report analyzing Medicare Part B spending on laboratory tests over the past year. According to OIG, Medicare Part B spending on laboratory tests increased 17% from $8.0 billion in...more
OIG issued a report last week examining alleged billing irregularities relating to COVID-19 tests (the Report). The Report explains that in response to increased Medicare Part B spending on COVID-19 tests in 2020, OIG...more
As the year comes to a close, the government has signaled a specific focus on clinical laboratories for 2023. On December 6, 2022, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General (OIG) issued...more
In a quick turnaround, CMS rescinded its September 26, 2022 memo and has decided it will continue to exercise its enforcement discretion under CLIA for the duration of the COVID-19 public health emergency...more
Effective September 26, 2022, CMS rescinded its December 7, 2020, enforcement discretion for the Use of COVID-19 tests on asymptomatic individuals outside the test’s instructions for use. In a memo of the same date, CMS...more
The DOJ announced charges against 21 people across nine federal districts for their alleged role in pandemic-related fraud schemes resulting in over $149 million in false billings to federal programs. This is the largest...more
The U.S. Supreme Court has issued two opinions on COVID regulations impacting employers and workers across the country. In the first, the Court stayed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (“OSHA”) “vaccine or...more
On January 13, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down one federal COVID-19 vaccine mandate (on large employers) while leaving another (on federally funded healthcare facilities) intact. On balance, these decisions curb...more
On February 2, 2022, Steptoe & Johnson PLLC attorneys Bill Wahoff, Jeff Tour, and Ashley Faulkner held an interactive webcast and provided employers an opportunity to ask questions related to paying for testing, creating...more
In September 2021, President Biden announced a series of emergency worker protection regulations to combat surging positive test rates caused by the COVID-19 Delta variant. On September 9, 2021, the White House issued...more
OSHA’s Emergency Temporary Standard - On November 5, 2021, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) requiring most employers with 100 or more employees to either...more
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an enormous need for testing and has spawned the creation of new labs and specimen collection agencies to (try to) meet that need. In 2020 alone, Medicare spent $1.5 billion on COVID-19 tests....more
It’s hard to keep up with all the recent changes to labor and employment law. While the law always seems to evolve at a rapid pace, there have been an unprecedented number of changes for the past few years—and this past month...more
OSHA has officially withdrawn its COVID-19 vaccination and testing emergency temporary standard (ETS), 29 C.F.R. § 1910.501, per a notice in the January 26 Federal Register. 87 Fed. Reg. 3928 (Jan. 26, 2022). As explained in...more
On January 25, 2022, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”) announced its withdrawal of the COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standard (“ETS”) requiring vaccination or weekly testing. This action came...more
The vaccine mandates President Biden announced on September 9 have not aged well. Two are enjoined nationwide and a skeptical Supreme Court so undermined one that the government withdrew it, at least for the immediate future....more
Our Blog has been monitoring the ETS that OSHA issued in November 2021 that mandated employers of 100 or more employees to require their employees to obtain COVID-19 vaccinations or undergo regular COVID-19 testing instead. ...more
On Jan. 13, 2022, the United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) granted an emergency request for relief staying the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS), requiring all employers with...more
Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Biden v. Missouri, CMS will require several states to be compliant with the “Phase 1” requirements of its Interim Final Rule (“IFC”) as of January 27, 2022. These states include...more